Sunday, December 05, 2010

Chromatography of Hydrogen Isotopes, part II

The paper in progress over the summer by Dr. Whisnant, Travis Kelly and Patrick Hansen has been accepted by the Review of Scientific Instruments. Final corrections are in progress and it should be published early next year.

The figure shows the chromatogram and our fit to it for a sample that is about 6.6% H2 and 3.5% D2. The scale has been expanded by dividing the data for the HD peak by 10. As you can see, the p-H2 and  o-H2 peaks are well separated and the HD tail under the D2 is small. The fits are difficult to distinguish from the data since they are so good! There's no fit to the HD peak shown, it is numerically integrated.

They also have a nice model for understanding the plateau between the p-H2 and  o-H2 peaks in the region around 15 minutes retention time, but you'll need to read the paper to get the details.

Congratulations to Travis and Patrick...two more of our undergraduates published in a peer-reviewed journal.